This year's festival offers a star-studded line-up over 10 days of classics, new Irish work, world cinema and documentaries, writes DONALD CLARKE,Film Correspondent
THE JAMESON Dublin International Film Festival embarked on its 10th edition last night with a gala screening of Thom Fitzgerald's charming road movie Cloudburst.
The film stars Brenda Fricker and Olympia Dukakis as two lesbians who travel from Canada to Maine with the intention of getting married.
Adapted from Fitzgerald's play, Cloudburstoffered a winning blend of anger and foul-mouthed whimsy. Currently kicking up controversy after severely criticising the recent Irish Film and Television Awards ceremony, Fricker joined Fitzgerald at the Savoy Cinema to celebrate a decade of the festival.
" Cloudburstis as beguiling as its lovely title suggests," Gráinne Humphreys, the festival director, enthused.
“From my point of view, this has always been an audience festival. I would note that the sections we have expanded are those that are badly served by Irish cinemas: archive material, documentaries, retrospectives.”
Anna Malmhake, chief executive and chairwoman of Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard, was happy to confirm that Jameson remained committed to the project.
“We are delighted to have renewed this partnership for another three years,” she said.
"I'm especially delighted that Michael Madsen is joining us for the Jameson Cult Film Club screening of Reservoir Dogs. It has proved to be a hugely popular event since its launch at last year's festival and further strengthens Jameson's association with film."
Noting that several high-profile events had already sold out, the organisers were modestly bullish about the festival’s prospects.
First devised in 2003 as a replacement for the recently defunct Dublin film festival, the Jameson festival now stretches over 10 days and offers punters a varied selection of 147 screenings.
Alongside the Galway Film Fleadh and the Cork Film Festival, the event is one of three internationally recognised, major Irish film festivals.
As well as dragging out ancient classics, screening new Irish work and presenting the best of current world cinema, the festival has always worked hard to deliver major celebrities.
Glenn Close will be in town tomorrow to present a screening of Albert Nobbs. Co-written by John Banville, this newspaper's former literary editor, the picture finds Close playing a woman compelled to dress as a man in 19th century Ireland. Close has received an Oscar nomination for her performance.
Martin Sheen, now an Irish citizen, returns to the festival to promote his appearance in Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Stella Days. Co-starring Amy Huberman, the picture concerns a priest who falls foul of the town fathers while trying to promote a cinema in 1950s Ireland.
Mark Wahlberg, one of the world's grittiest leading men, turns up to discuss his appearance in a thriller titled Contraband. Of Irish descent, the Bostonian will surely generate mayhem on the red carpet.
The biggest draw will, surely, be Al Pacino. The American actor, among the most respected of his generation, will attend to discuss his documentary Wilde Salome, a study of Oscar Wilde's most notorious play. Tickets are, by all accounts, hard to come by.